Writer and director Laxman Utekar’s film Zara Hatke Zara Bachke, released today on 2nd June in cinemas where the story is based on a young middle-class couple who wants to live away from their joint families and in that urge of living nuclear their whole journey is a comedy of errors.
The story is not logical or original but yet watchable. Laxman Utekar’s Mimi had a widely success after its OTT release and with that hope his this film has showed an impregnating social issue with a wholesome mixture of drama and comedy.
In this film Utekar has showcased a young middle-class couple who has desire to move out from their joint families and live a seperate personal life of their own and how far they could go to fulfill their wish and have their own exclusive roof over their heads in a light hearted fashion. In this movie, Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan are the lead actors who are playing the role of the couple.
Kapil Dubey (Vicky Kaushal) is a Yoga teacher and Saumya Chawla (Sara Ali Khan) is a professor of Chemistry and they had love marriage but the marriage hits a roadblock when their nose poking relatives makes an entrance. As their uncle and aunt could smell egg in an anniversary cake and a Punjabi style in Soumya’s behaviour, the young couple starts looking for a space outside the locality.
Kapil and Saumya has decided to apply for a government scheme as renting a flat was clearly out of their budget but yet to fulfill the conditions of the scheme, a fraud official named Bhagwan Das (Inaamulhaq) advises them to divorce each other. It spirals into a comedy of errors that might not be entirely logical and original, but captures the churn in urban families and society.
Sara and Vicky’s on-screen chemistry has the essence of middle-class family dramas that was once featured by Amol Palekar and Zarina Wahab, and Farooque Sheikh and Deepti Naval. Sara comes across as convincing as the girl who wants more out of life, while Vicky is endearing as the boy who believes in cutting shortcuts to fuel the future. Over the course of two hours, we witness a fascinating change in the way the two influence one another’s behaviours.
Vicky doesn’t mind exposing Kapil without the charm because to the writing’s plausibility, while Sara demonstrates that Soumya is more than just chiffon and georgette saris. A film such as this demands a couple of hummable songs but while the score composed by Sachin Jigar is not bad, it is the timeless R.D. Burman number “Dekho Maine Dekha Hai Yeh Ek Sapna” that becomes the leitmotif of the love story.
Similar to the title, this copy-and-paste strategy that is meant to sound inspirational also appears in the plot and is reminiscent of the Irrfan-starring film Hindi Medium, in which the desire to fit into a government programme goes backfired. In fact, the guard character played by Sharib Hashmi and the way it drives the storyline are strikingly similar to Deepak Dobriyal’s in the Saket Chaudhary movie, which, curiously enough, had Utekar as the cinematographer.
As impressive as the support cast is, it is good to see Akash Khurana playing a middle-class father after being portrayed as a political bigwig and business honcho, but Kanupriya Pandit is the one to steal the show as the conniving yet cute Deepa Mami, always in the urge to bring in the caste and social status in a family discussion. Hard to ignore our very own Rakesh Bedi as the father-in-law who imparts crucial life lessons after a few pegs.
Yes, there are parts where the main characters’ organic and inorganic chemistry is overdone. Sara is getting better with each performance, but she needs to find a method to channel her anxious energy that doesn’t come off as theatrical, especially when Vicky or Dhanush (Atrangi Re) are in the same frame. After a while, the events and props start to feel redundant, but the movie soon rediscovers its “Chi” before it’s too late, as Kapil would advise his yoga pupils.
